Quantic Dream made steady footing with the critically acclaimed Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in North America) but they just had to do one better. Heavy Rain is (as Quantic Dream describe it) an Interactive Drama, you can see why. Many dismiss it as an Interactive Film or a 12 hour Quick-Time event but this is completely untrue.
In the game the decisions you make affect the outcome of the game, the 4 characters you play as can die at any point if you make a mistake, something of which I know all too well now. The game has a huge amount of different endings and is worth playing over and over again just to do each of them.
The story centres around Ethan and Shaun Mars, after a terrible accident 2 years previous to the main game Ethan is separated from his wife and looks after his son Shaun. The city which they live in is fairly run down and not a very nice place to live. Several children have been taken and drowned in rainwater by someone known as the Origami Killer over a couple of years, the corpse is left with an origami figure and an orchid flower on their persons to mark his work.
Shaun disappears one day and Ethan suspects the Origami killer, taking Ethan on a heart-pounding, summer blockbuster beating thrill ride for his and his son’s life.
You also play as journalist Madison Paige who helps Ethan in his hunt for Shaun, PI Scott Shelby who is investigating the Origami killer and FBI agent Norman Jayden.
Each character has enough depth to make the Grand Canyon feel jealous and acts so much like a person that by the time it comes to when their lives are in danger you fear for all of them and feel a sense of loss when one of them is gone. This game is so incredibly well scripted and has such an amazing story that it deserves to be remembered in the hall of legends.
The gameplay is minimal; it is largely walking around areas and collecting clues or completing objectives. All actual gameplay is handled with Quick-Time Events which get progressively harder as the game goes on and that actually impact on the world around you if you don’t do it right. You can also make choices on things such as what to ask people when you question them, to shoot someone or to take a drink a stranger offers you. Depending on what options you choose ultimately decides what happens to each character and how it impacts on everything else. On more than one occasion I was faced with choices that I either did not respond correctly to or didn’t respond at all to and I found myself fighting for my characters’ lives, twice my attempts at saving them did not succeed.
If one someone dies you just don’t see them again and vital attempts to catch the Origami killer may be missed.
The visual elements of this game are what you would expect from a game on this generation of consoles, the textures are largely smooth and good looking but they are largely made up of greys, browns and blacks. The characters themselves take damage throughout the game, at one point in my game Scott was beaten up fairly badly and for the rest of the game had a black eye and cuts on his face.
The audio though is another matter, the general sounds of things such as guns, walking or doors didn’t sound natural and they were usually out of time and didn’t sound like what they were meant to sound like in reality. The characters voice actors were top notch though and really helped with the depth of the characters, my favourite example of this is the character Lauren who helps Scott with his investigation. Her real name is Aurélie Bancilhon, she is a French-American actress who has had some fairly minor roles in the past, and her portrayal of Lauren in the game was beautiful and really made me fear for her and make sure she was safe during the game. However this didn’t quite work as we were involved in a car crash and she died, but when this happened I had to pause the game and sit for a minute to come to terms with what had happened.
Heavy Rain was one of those games that was fairly under the radar for me until I knew what it was, but when I knew what it was it had me excited. It is one of the best games I have ever played and I want more from it. If you don’t own a PS3 but was thinking of getting one I would advise getting one just for this game. A game like this is why I love gaming and continue to do so. It is a masterpiece and how games should aspire to be like, this has put Quantic Dream on the map and I cannot wait to see what else they can come up with.
Heavy Rain – 10/10
+Story
+Characters
+Minimalist Gameplay
-Audio/Visual Standard
